66 Chapters on Animals. 



and partly on a subtle satisfaction in believing that we are 

 beloved by our slaves. But the plain truth is, that horses, 

 as they live usually in our service, have little to love us 

 for, and most commonly regard us either with indiffer- 

 ence or dislike. The slightest demonstration of attach- 

 ment wins us in a moment, and we exaggerate it because 

 it flatters our amour propre. When a horse neighs at our 

 coming, it is most commonly a request for corn, and some 

 of his other demonstrations are very equivocal. Some 

 men tell you when horses set their ears back, and 

 show the white of their eye, and try to bite, and kick at 

 them in the stable, that all these are merely signs of 

 playful affection. In short, there is a distinct passion in 

 man's heart for which the Greeks had a name, but which 

 in England we call the love of horses, and this has its 

 illusions like every other passion. 



When we come to the active vices, the hatred and rebel- 

 lion of the horse against his master express themselves 

 very plainly, much more plainly than equine affection 

 expresses itself ever. Many of these vices are hereditary 

 in the equine blood, are a tradition of ill-usage. The way 

 in which they burst forth in horses, apparently of the most 

 tranquil character, is one of the mysteries of nature. 

 Three instances have occurred in my own stable, of 

 animals becoming suddenly and irremediably vicious, pass- 

 ing in the course of three or four days from a state like 

 that of Paris under the Empire to the rage and rebellion 

 of Paris under the Commune, and neither in these cases, 

 nor in any other that has come under my observation, has 

 a real vice ever been permanently eradicated. Horses 

 become vicious from many causes ; the most frequent, I 

 think, is idleness in combination with confinement and good 



Amour propre, self esteem. 



